African Lion

Zenda: Female, born at the Johannesburg Zoo on July 10, 1991. She arrived at the Zoo from South Africa in 1993. She is tawny in color. Due to her advanced age, she stays separate from the youngsters, Makini and Tajiri.

Makini: Male, born at the Tulsa Zoo & Living Museum in Oklahoma on March 24, 2009. He arrived at the Zoo on December 16, 2011. His name means “dignity” in Swahili.

Tajiri: Female, born at the Racine Zoo in Wisconsin on March 16, 2010. She arrived at the Zoo on January 25, 2012. Her name means “rich” in Swahili.

Makini and Tajiri are the proud parents of four cubs, born on June 25 and 26, 2014. You can tell them apart by their dye marks: Kataba currently has marks on the right front paw, Mali has no dye marks, Msinga has three stripes on her right hip, and Sabi has a mark on both hind paws. The dye marks fade over time and must be reapplied regularly, so this can change on occasion.

Enrichment

First Niagara Big Cat Falls offers enrichment opportunities by design. Big cats can explore other cat habitats, pick up on the scents present, and mark territory. Boxes, piñatas, and scratching posts all make excellent enrichment toys. These are often sprinkled with scents to make it more interesting for the lions.

Viewing Hints

The lion habitat at Big Cat Falls is a fantastic viewing area. You can stand face to face with the lions behind a huge glass window. The lions like to lay and play near the window.

Where to find me in the Zoo

First Niagara Big Cat Falls

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Like other cats, lions have excellent senses. Since they are primarily nocturnal (meaning most active at night) their night vision is six times greater than that of humans. Well-developed whiskers and other long stiff hairs above their eyes and on their underarms have nerve connections and are used for sensing. They also have a well-developed sense of smell which they use to communicate with other lions who mark their territory.

Two distinctive features set lions apart from all other wild cats; they are social felines (other cats are typically solitary in the wild) and they are the only cats to exhibit a distinction between males and females - males have a mane.

Another unique feature of lions is their tongues. They have short, horny backward pointing hooks on the upper surface which aids in grooming and for holding and lacerating food.

Reproduction

Lions are able to have cubs at around 3–4 years of age. Gestation is between 103 and 119 days (typically 110). When lions are ready to give birth to their litter—usually about three or four cubs—they go off alone to a den isolated from the rest of the pride. Mother and cubs then return to the pride after approximately three months. Males guard the cubs while the females hunt, playing with them and teaching them life skills by wrestling. The cubs will participate in their first hunt when they are about 11 months old.

Depending on the pride, young males either leave or are driven out around age two. Young females usually remain with the pride unless the quantity of females becomes too large.

Behavior

Lions are social animals that live in prides of between four and 37 cats. The pride usually consists of a core of four to 12 related adult females, their offspring and one to six adult males. In the pride, females do most of the hunting, when they work together to form an ambush.

Lions spend more than 80 percent of their time conserving energy. Conserving energy is important for animals that are big and bulky and that live in areas where getting food is challenging. As a result, lions spend up to 20 hours a day resting or sleeping.

Lions have nine distinct vocalizations including roars, grunts and growls. The position of their hyoid apparatus, a bone at the base of the skull, means lions can only purr when they exhale. Pride members also rub cheeks when they meet.

Size

Males are about 4 feet (121 cm) and 8 feet (243 cm), not including the tail, which averages about 3 feet (91 cm) long.

Weight

Diet

In Africa, the preferred prey of the lion is wildebeest, impala, zebras, buffalo and warthogs. At the Zoo, their diet includes a commercial raw meat mix, solid beef, beef shank bones and long bones. The diet is formulated to meet the nutritional needs of each animal. Beef long bones are offered once a week mainly to provide chewing activity. Beef shank bones have nearly 7 lbs (3kg) of meat attached to the bone; the lions enjoy tearing the meat from the bones. The shank bones not only provide food, they also provide an enjoyed activity for the animals while strengthening their jaw muscles.

Geographic Range

Grassy plains, savannas, and semi-deserts throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa.

Conservation Status

The African lion is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Main threats to lions include killing to protect livestock and depletion of their prey. Habitat loss and conversion for agriculture have also led to a decline in some population sizes.

The Ongava Research Centre (ORC) is part of one of the largest private reserves in Namibia, covering 125 miles and sharing its northern boundary with Etosha National Park. ORC has now been monitoring lions on Ongava for over nice years and has built up a comprehensive picture of how lions form groups and how those groups expand and ultimately disperse.

The Zoo’s partnership with ORC began in 2010 in support of the conservation research project “Pride Dynamics and Dispersal in the Lion Population of Ongava Game Reserve,” which looks specifically at the movements, interactions and habitat needs of young male lions as they begin to break away from their “home” prides.